My sympathies lie with with the athletes on this one.
To start with, from the very beginning of their career in high school, they are seen as, and treated with the same respect as performing animals.
The attrition rate is terrible, and those that are not discarded due to serious injury are in bitter competition for the tiny number of professional jobs. And even if they get one of those, the ordinary wages are not spectacular for most, with only the very few A-list getting the big bucks.
The attrition continues to be brutal, both by injury and lower performance, with little tolerance for personal problems. Then slap on that the indignity of proclaiming them “role models”.
Role models of what? Bad career choices? Man’s inhumanity to man? The joy of crippling injuries and meager retirement at a young age?
Yet those few willing to do this are desperate enough to take performance enhancing drugs, just so they can do *better*, put on a *better* show, and push the limits of what might be done.
Dang, that’s tragic. But it’s all they’ve got. They have been shafted already, and their future looks pretty awful, not matter what happens.
So why deprive them, in a fit of moral outrage? What’s one more bad thing added to a mountain of bad things.
Ah, now I get it. Sounds like reason enough to be a drug dealer.